Blog introduction

When I was thinking of things to write for a blog I asked myself what I want from creatures. After all these years of only periodically thinking of it I have come back to the cc, but why? Why not morrowind, why not real time strategy games? Or cortex command? Many old games are moddable and these games all offer me great nostalgia.

What is it that makes creatures special, and what does it have that I believe can keep me occupied rather than a short period of replaying?

I believe the answer is depth. I think this is the most common answer, but it is true. Because has so little pre programmed situations and relies on pure simulation for many things, the possibilities are almost endless.

When you take another game with “breeding” and inheritable traits, like the sims, the amount of traits that are chosen or calculated from the parents’ traits is how many? 10? 50? Not much more, and these are very simple and superficial. Hair color, length, skin color.

These are direct expressive genes, if you wish to call them that. There are no internal organs, bones, nerve receptors, hormones and biochemistry that all interconnect into an expressed trait. What you see is what you get.

Creatures on the other hand, offers all that. Including random mutations. This entire structure of genes and resulting biochemistry does mean however that it can all come down like a house of cards when one faulty gene is introduced, most often by these random mutations.

I suppose this is nothing new to the average creatures player, but does show the depth involved here.

The thoroughness of modding, both in genes and in codable object also make creatures an endlessly expandable sandbox, something in which a player can forever keep experimenting.

I have modded many other games, cortex command, warcraft 3, morrowind, and I have played with making some games of my own. With many games I soon felt limited and also felt that everything lacked a spark of cheerfulnes and life that norns have, and with my own games I was mostly developing the engines, rather than the fun content.

Another very imortant part was community. I fondly remember the forums and the ccsf, i was there in 2005 when the first one was held. I loved scrolling through amanoras and ettin trix’ websites. Aquashees, edash’, aliens, and so forth. I love the excitement releasing something even as small as a food agent brings, and the appreciation. I often missed this in other communities and I hope to re-find this spark in the cc again.

Though I don't think I have the time and ambition to make a metaroom or even world, I ám very excited to play the game, try the dos alpha, make an amount of agents, and perhaps even try to make a breed with the new tools. But even if none of that works out, I’ll certainly find the time to write articles and stories!

Thank you for reading this little rant of love, comments are always welcome, and have a good day!

-Gobbo